HUNDREDS of alleged rioters have been arrested across England as far right riots and disturbances continued for a seventh night.
Almost 400 people have been arrested so far in connection with the riots and looting, which have a strong component of Islamophobia and racism directed against migrants and asylum seekers.
Former senior police officer Neil Basu, who was the head of counter-terrorism policing between 2018 and 2021, has said that some of the recent disturbances cross the line into terrorism.
Speaking to the BBC he said: “I think we have seen serious acts of violence designed to cause terror to a section of our community."
He added that “people should look very carefully” at the legal definition of terrorism amid the far-right unrest and that many have been triggered by “lies spread through social media”.
READ MORE: John Swinney speaks out on far-right riots in England and Northern Ireland
Owner of Twitter Elon Musk has looked the other way as his toxic platform has been used to spread far-right lies and misinformation which has fanned the flames.
Upon taking over the platform he gutted content moderation and reinstated the accounts of many who had previously been removed from the platform for hate speech.
In effect he gave, in the name of so called 'free speech', carte blanche to racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, turning an already problematic social media site into a hellscape of hatred where misinformation is freely shared and moderation is all but non-existent.
But then Musk himself has shown in recent months that he apparently has similar views to some of those expressed by the far-right, so it's hardly surprising that he refuses to take action against right-wing hate speech.
In response to criticism from Keir Starmer of Musk's "Civil war is inevitable" comment regarding far-right riots in the UK, Musk hit back at Starmer's remark: "We will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities."
Musk asked: "Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?"
It's not Christian churches or Jewish synagogues which are being targeted by the rioters, and Musk knows that, but his comment is part of his long-established tendency to double down and throw fuel on the fire whenever anyone has the temerity to challenge Musk's estimation of himself as a prophetic genius.
Musk is deliberately fostering the 'two-tier' policing myth so beloved of the victimhood seeking right wing which falsely claims that Muslim and other minority ethnic communities receive preferential treatment from the authorities.
In fact members of minority ethnic communities do indeed receive preferential treatment from the police, just not in the way that the far right and Elon Musk would have us believe.
READ MORE: SNP and independence votes no longer 'meaningfully' linked, study says
In fact the arrest rate for black people in England and Wales is more than double that of white people.
The arrest rates for people of an Asian background and those of mixed heritage are also higher than that of white people.
Black people make up 13% of the prison population in England and Wales but only 4% of the population as a whole.
These figures do not suggest that the police are especially lenient towards minority ethnic communities, if anything they suggest the reverse but that doesn't suit the "white English as victims" narrative so beloved of the English nationalist far right.
Petulant man child Elon Musk is the perfect example of what happens when you become so rich and powerful that you have no one in your life who is able to tell you - "Stop it now, you're being an arse."
'No place in Scotland for hatred'
Following a meeting with members of the Muslim community, First Minister John Swinney has insisted there is “no place in Scotland for hatred of any kind.”
The First Minister and Justice Secretary Angela Constance met Imam Habib Rauf, and representatives of the Scottish Refugee Council and the Muslim Council of Scotland at Edinburgh Central Mosque on Monday.
The pair also met the chief constable and other senior Police Scotland officers earlier in the day to discuss preparedness and provide reassurance to communities.
After the meeting, the First Minister said: “Let me be absolutely clear, the type of behaviour we have seen in other parts of the United Kingdom is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in Scotland.”
Scotland does not exist in a vacuum when scrutinising exam results
Nevertheless, BBC Scotland chose instead to platform Labour leader Anas Sarwar, whom it has still not questioned about the refusal of Labour MPs from Scotland to vote to abolish the two child benefit cap or the cut to the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
But never mind the rise of far right English nationalism and the threat it poses.
BBC Scotland and the anti-independence media have found a new stick with which to beat the Scottish government.
The annual exam results have been released, and they show that the gap between rich and poor is now wider than ever.
The most recent statistics show that the Higher pass rate for pupils from the most affluent 20% of Scotland stood at 82.2 percent, whereas the same figure for those from the most deprived 20% of the country was just 65.1 percent.
Naturally in the universe of the anti-independence media this is entirely the fault of the Scottish Government because education is devolved.
Yet again we see that familiar pattern of the anti-independence media pretence that Scotland is functionally independent already and that devolved matters are unaffected by the macroeconomic and social decisions of the government in Westminster.
If poverty and deprivation are rising across the UK as a consequence of British Government decisions in tax credit and benefit policy, then that is bound to have a negative effect on the educational attainment of Scottish school pupils, even though education is a devolved matter.
Scotland does not exist in a vacuum perfectly insulated from British Government policy, but it frequently suits the anti-independence media to present a story as though Scotland did.
It's a trick the Scottish media plays frequently as it feeds into the anti-independence narrative that Scotland is incapable of doing better by itself.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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